Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I don't know how I feel about email

xeiaso.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 69 posts

Re: I don't know how I feel about email

#31

Post by appplication »

phoe-krk wrote: post #19
8organicbits wrote: post #14

I thought this was actually about Mastodon given that people already have experience with email, and it was trying to draw parallels with the success of email. But it just ends by giving up..?

Just like many people give up before figuring Mastodon out. Satire successful.

I seems to be missing the mark and satirizing the users for not understanding or liking a poor user experience, when it would make more sense to satirize the platform itself for failing to appropriately consider that when given a choice, users aren’t going to choose the difficult and annoying thing, but rather the simple and understandable one.

Criticisms of mastodon/lemmy/fediverse are 100% warranted. People try it and give up because it’s a confusing mess compared to any alternative. So either the product is so complex it can’t be simplified, or the developers of the project are so ignorant to user feedback that they aren’t willing to prioritize simplifying it. Both of these do not bode well for long term success or wide adoption.

There is also this sense I get when interacting with some fediverse enthusiasts that perhaps the complexity is good because it keeps the communities small, or if you can’t figure it out you shouldn’t use it. All I have to say about that perspective is that it’s pretty damn pretentious, as well as at odds with the messaging that these are meant to be replacement services for widely adopted social networks.

Re: I don't know how I feel about email

#33

Post by phoe-krk »

appplication wrote: post #31
phoe-krk wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like many people give up before figuring Mastodon out. Satire successful.

I seems to be missing the mark and satirizing the users for not understanding or liking a poor user experience, when it would make more sense to satirize the platform itself for failing to appropriately consider that when given a choice, users aren’t going to choose the difficult and annoying thing, but rather the simple and understandable one. Criticisms of mastodon/lemmy/fediverse are 100% warranted. People try it…

I don't think it's satirizing the users; it successfully highlights an existing problem of people leaving before trying, and I agree with this highlight as an avid user of the Fediverse.

Re: I don't know how I feel about email

#34

Post by lolinder »

The key difference between SMTP and ActivityPub is that SMTP arrived on the scene in an era when getting started on the internet (sorry, ARPANET) at all was a major technical feat. The median internet user in the two decades following the introduction of SMTP was plenty competent enough to handle the complexities of email, and once email became the standard way to communicate everyone had to figure it out. At first it was all that we had, and by the time centralized platforms started making things easier the network effects were so strong that they had to support SMTP.

Some people are putting Mastodon forward as a replacement for a centralized platform, but now the network effects are working in the same direction as the complexity friction—both are pushing you towards centralized platforms and away from Mastodon and company. For most people there's no incentive to overcome the barriers because they would be the first in their social circles to attempt it, and the centralized platforms so far have had little motivation to support ActivityPub because their users don't expect to interact with that ecosystem. If Threads really does implement ActivityPub I could see that changing, but that remains to be seen.

This doesn't mean that Mastodon doesn't have a place right now—if you're looking for a community that is specifically filtered to exclude those who aren't above average in technical competency, it'll do nicely. But it cannot serve the median internet user today.

Re: I don't know how I feel about email

#36

Post by 8organicbits »

cool_dude85 wrote: post #12
8organicbits wrote: post #8

> What do you mean that the spamfilter software takes 12 gigabytes of ram, 4 CPU cores, and 35 GB of local space in order to work? What software needs that? Mail in a box seems much lower for the whole stack: https://mailinabox.email/guide.html#machine

The whole thing is talking about the fediverse. Presumably if you wanted to set up a server of your own on there and run a spam filter it would need to be so large.

The satire may land better if the hyperbole was more exaggerated. The specs are crazy for personal use, but probably reasonable for heavy/enterprise tools. I left wondering if they were considering the latter; misguided people make mistakes like that.

Re: I don't know how I feel about email

#38

Post by jeroenhd »

tomlx wrote: post #17
CharlesW wrote: post #11

Hey early responders: Christine's post is not actually about email, and she presumably believes email is just fine. It's written to be a satire of critiques about federated social media services like Mastodon and Lemmy.

was about to say that ... > Tags: satire email

I think it's a fair warning.

Half the comments on long blog posts usually end up discussing the headline, or even just part of it. Combine that with the difficulty people on online forums have to recognise blatant satire and you'll end up with pages of discussion about SMTP before you know it.

I see at least four top level comments failing to see the satire or talking about email. The downvotes are pushing them down, but it shows the sarcasm warning was necessary…

Re: I don't know how I feel about email

#39

Post by kixiQu »

CharlesW wrote: post #11

Hey early responders: Christine's post is not actually about email, and she presumably believes email is just fine. It's written to be a satire of critiques about federated social media services like Mastodon and Lemmy.

The warning is necessary, so I'm not disagreeing with you per se... But I think it's a positive quality of the piece that it doesn't actually resolve to a thesis about the comparison (as might "email is fine, and therefore..."), but just points out the tension. It's up to the reader to use the comparison to take a moment to consider what they think the costs and benefits involved are. Plenty of folks (well, judging from comments sections) think that email fails at many of the things it claims to do, and would assent to an "Everyone sucks here" judgment about both email and the Fediverse.

Re: I don't know how I feel about email

#40

Post by dlandau »

Kwpolska wrote: post #21
generalpf wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure where you live but in Canada and the USA the phone companies legally have to allow you to port your existing number over from one company to another.

Was that true in the 90s, when Netscape and ISP email addresses were in use?

I remember porting numbers becoming a thing and I was born in 1989 so it must have been late 90s earliest. In Finland though, so don't know about north america
Post reply on HN